Civil servants to cover UK border control during public sector strikes

Civil servants across the government have been asked by the Home Office to work as border control officers during next week's one-day strike against public sector pension reform. Selected groups of government employees were contacted this week and asked if they are willing to walk through picket lines and check passports as passengers arrive at airports and ports from abroad next Wednesday. The tactic raises the spectre of Whitehall mandarins flicking through the documentation of airline passengers as they enter Britain. The move comes in the wake of a furore after it emerged that full checks on visa nationals from outside Europe had been regularly suspended at Heathrow because of staff shortages. The row put the home secretary, Theresa May, under intense political pressure and ultimately provoked the departure of UK border force chief Brodie Clark. It is the first time that the government has sought to recruit other members of the civil service to break a strike by immigration officials. A government source confirmed the plan but added that any recruits would be restricted to checking British passports and other "low risk work". A spokesman for the government could not say whether civil servants who worked could expect to receive any perks or how much training they could expect to receive over the next week. UK Border Agency staff in embassies across the world have already been offered taxpayer-funded flights to Britain if they are willing to work uring the strike. Emails seen by the Guardian show the government has asked immigration officials from India, South Africa and Russia to return to the UK to cover next Wednesday when thousands of their colleagues plan to take industrial action. Staff willing to return and cross a picket line would also be allowed to extend their stay to spend time with their families. About 18,000 immigration officials could join the strike next week, a month before the deadline for a deal between the government and union leaders on pension reform. An estimated 3 million public sector workers, including teachers and probation officers, are expected to strike. It is understood the head of human resources at the agency, Joe Dugdale, phoned the Public and Commercial Services Union last week and asked if it would be willing to provide minimal cover on the day of the strike. The union refused. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said: "It is an insult to hard-working border force staff that the government is scratching round trying to fill skilled posts with people who are essentially volunteers."